Olympics 2024: Winners and losers of the basketball tournaments in Lille and Paris

The Olympics are over, so let’s go over the winners and losers of the tournaments.

The 2024 Olympics is now complete. I won’t make this a roundup of everything that happened in Lille and Paris, but here are some of the winners and losers after these last two weeks in France.

Winners

• USA Basketball 5X5 men’s and women’s national teams — When a team wins the gold medal, that team’s a winner. Both the men’s and women’s 5X5 teams won the tournaments, but also had to win some very close games. The men had a nailbiter in the semifinals against Serbia. The women barely beat France to win the Gold Medal.
• Les Bleus et Les Bleues’ 5X5 teams — The men were a potential medal threat but not the favorites to play Team USA for the gold medal. The women were a medal favorite from the beginning. Ultimately, the home team made the championship and played well against the USA, which the fans will be very proud of.
• Northwestern Europe — FIBA Americas has Team USA, Canada, and then a major drop off in talent. FIBA Europe, however is the best in basketball from top to bottom. Usually the best European countries historically tend to come from Mediterranean (ex. France, Spain, Italy) or the former Eastern Bloc states (ex. Serbia, and in past years Lithuania and before they were banned, Russia). So it could be a surprise to some when northwestern European countries like Germany (men’s 5X5, women’s 5X5, women’s 3X3), the Netherlands (men’s 3X3), and Belgium (women’s 5X5) represented in this Olympics. Not only that, the German women’s 3X3 and Dutch men’s 3X3 teams won the Gold Medals while the German men’s 5X5 and Belgian women’s 5X5 teams made the semifinals. Perhaps we will see these countries be more of a consistent presence in World Cups and Olympics in the future.
• Australia women’s 5×5 national team — The Opals were medalless in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics and they have yet to win a FIBA Women’s Asia Cup since joining them in 2017. Their medals in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups helped set the stage for these Olympics where they finished with the bronze medal. Ezi Magbegor and Alanna Smith look like the newest big timers for the Opals now after Jackson’s prime in the 2000s and early 2010s, and Liz Cambage, who is no longer playing for the Opals after a major scandal during a scrimmage with the Nigerian national team.
• Nigeria women’s 5X5 national team — D’Tigress were the first team from FIBA Africa to make the Olympic quarterfinals. While I still think a medal ia not quite on the horizon just yet, the Nigerians have been mainstays in world tournaments. And now, they aren’t just happy to be there, D’Tigress can and do win their fair share of games as well.
• Jade Melbourne, Julie Vanloo, and Aaliyah Edwards — The three Washington Mystics players on national teams all played significant minutes for Australia, Belgium and Canada respectively. Vanloo was the best performer of the three, where she averaged 14 points and 6.8 assists per game for the Cats. Melbourne was a consistent starter for the Opals, averaging 7 points per game. It gets better for Vanloo and Melbourne as well. FIBA named Vanloo to the All-Olympic second team and Melbourne as a Rising Star!

• Bilal Coulibaly — The Wizards guard played in five of Les Bleus’ six games, averaging 2.4 points in 11.4 minutes per contest. Given that he was one of the younger players on the French team who isn’t like … some San Antonio Spurs forward, I’m fine with that. The experience of representing his country and the home team and the Olympics is something that he will never forget. So Wizards fans should be proud that Coulibaly played in the Olympics, even if he didn’t play as much as some of the more established players on that team.
• The NBA — Every national team in the men’s 5X5 field had an NBA player on the roster, showing the league’s global reach.

Losers

Some teams and others had disappointing runs in the Olympics, and here they are below.

• Canada 5X5 men’s and women’s national teams — Basketball is becoming increasingly popular in the USA’s northern neighbor. The men have one of the Top 3 players in the world with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. And the women’s team is made up of multiple WNBA players. But in the end, the men were eliminated in the quarterfinals by France (when they were considered to be medal favorites) while the women were eliminated in the world stage. I think it’s happening real soon, but we’re still waiting for that moment when the Canadians break through and win a medal on the world.
• Spain 5X5 men’s and women’s national teams — The Spanish men medaled in 2008, 2012 and 2016 but didn’t medal in 2020 or these games. In fact, the Spanish men were eliminated in the group stage. The Spanish women have long been the best team in Europe, but they lost in the quarterfinals to Belgium.
• USA Basketball men’s and women’s 3X3 teams — The men didn’t make the elimination stage and lost to the Netherlands in a very lopsided game on the way out. The women did win the bronze medal, but lost three straight games to begin with (and I don’t think Cameron Brink would have changed things). Perhaps it’s time for USA Basketball to rethink how players, especially men’s players, prepare for the 3X3 game.
• USA Basketball men’s 5X5 national team selection processes, or lack thereof — They won the Gold Medal with many top stars on the team. But the loser here is their selection process. It seems like the best collection of American men only regroup for the Olympics every two or three cycles, especially after a poor showing in a World Cup or Olympics. Some superstars like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony before him have consistently played for Team USA, at least for the Olympics, no matter what, which is to their credit. But USA Basketball needs its best men’s players to be together on a more consistent basis, including FIBA World Cups. The next one is in 2027 and … do they want to be medal-less for the third straight time?